Over the past six months, there has been a significant increase in online broadcasts featuring young people exposing themselves on camera. These are the data provided by analysts at the Ukrainian hotline INHOPE, part of a global network that combats the spread of child sexual abuse material.<\/p>\n
Experts say the situation is particularly worrying. Children aged 10 to 12 and older are showing themselves online and gaining influence through social networks, regardless of the platform. This can happen during live broadcasts, when children fulfill viewers’ “requests” in chat rooms.<\/p>\n
This phenomenon has been called “self-generated CSAM, which means content created by children themselves. Human rights activists are already classifying it as another form of sexual exploitation. A 2024 study, titled “Five Forms of Coercion to Create Child Sexual Exploitation Material,” found that most of these cases are caused by manipulation or peer pressure. Researchers from Canada and Australia, including Brooke R. Maguire and Jennifer Martin, analyzed more than 300 real-life cases and identified five forms of coercion:<\/p>\n
1. Grooming \u2013 adults establish contact by offering gifts or support, or masquerading as teenagers through fake accounts.<\/p>\n
2. Viral challenges \u2013 flash mobs on social media that have hidden sexual content, sometimes organized by criminals to collect such content.<\/p>\n
3. Peer pressure \u2013 peers encourage each other to send explicit photos, which can then be the subject of blackmail or ridicule.<\/p>\n
4. Financial pressure \u2013 children create intimate content due to difficult economic conditions or for promises of monetary rewards.
\n5. Blackmail \u2013 criminals, having received at least one photo, demand more content from children, threatening to distribute the same materials.<\/p>\n
Studies show that children are unlikely to engage in such activities voluntarily; their actions are usually the result of manipulation or systemic control.<\/p>\n
In Ukraine, the problem is exacerbated by insufficient sexual education and children’s lack of awareness of digital risks. Many of them do not even realize that they are breaking the law and becoming victims of criminals.<\/p>\n
From January to October 2025, the INHOPE Ukraine hotline received 3,224 calls, of which 1,195 were identified as crimes, which indicates thousands of children whose photos and videos are distributed online. According to the Internet Watch Foundation, in 2023, more than 90% of all child sexual abuse material in the world was created by children themselves, which indicates the global scale of the problem.<\/p>\n
Society needs to realize that this is not just children’s fun. This is a new form of sexual exploitation disguised as voluntary.<\/p>\n
Key steps to address the problem:<\/p>\n
– Education: introducing digital safety and sex education lessons into school curricula.<\/p>\n
– Parenting: the need to establish trusting relationships with children and openness in discussing important topics.<\/p>\n
– Social media regulation: introducing moderation features such as broadcast blocking and age verification.<\/p>\n
Parents need to pay attention to changes in their children’s behavior, in particular, excessive time spent online, hiding the screen, or tension after using gadgets. This may be a signal of manipulation. In such cases, it is essential to have a conversation without accusations and to provide support.<\/p>\n
It is also necessary to check privacy settings, explain the risks associated with “streams” and “challenges, and remind them about the dangers of distributing even humorous videos without consent. It is worth explaining to the child that manipulation begins with trust and can end with exploitation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Over the past six months, there has been a significant increase in online broadcasts featuring young people exposing themselves on camera. These are the data provided by analysts at the Ukrainian hotline INHOPE, part of a global network that combats the spread of child sexual abuse material. Experts say the situation is particularly worrying. Children […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":25628,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n